


choking back your words

by flashandsubstance



Category: DCU, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt No Comfort, Loneliness, Wally West is The Flash, i had to finish and post it because it was driving me crazy, the open ending is because this has been sitting in my drafts for far too long
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-23 21:24:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16626674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flashandsubstance/pseuds/flashandsubstance
Summary: Wally’s fine. So what if he’s lonely? It’s not hurting him or anything.Tell that to the flowers that he’s been coughing up.





	choking back your words

**Author's Note:**

> fic and title were both inspired by the song ivy by sales!! i wrote this fic because i love the concept of hanahaki and sometimes you gotta vent about loneliness tbh

He peels the red petal off his tongue.

“Eugh.” He says. “Thanks, Ivy.”

No one responds, so Wally continues on.

“Must have gotten caught in my mouth while I was running.” He said, grinning.His eyes flick between the other Leaguers, all stoic as they watch the police cuff Ivy. She’s looking at him, he realizes, as he watches her sit down in the van. Her grin is wide, and the malice in it makes his own smile falter. Like she knows something he doesn’t, and just can’t wait to see the consequences.

Wally doesn’t like it.

…

Wally has no friends outside of the League. (At least, no friends that aren’t from work, and anyways, those aren’t real friends) So, after missions, if he has nothing better to do, Wally hangs around the Watchtower.

As he sits down at a table in the mess hall, he glances around the room. No one seems to notice his entrance, or, if they do notice, they don’t appear to care, so when Shayera enters, the waves. Maybe she’ll see him and start up a conversation?

She doesn’t see him. His face falls, and he turns away. Wally stands, and begins to reach for his tray.

Instead, he stops and and lifts his hand to stifle a cough.

When he moves his hand away, there’s a petal in his palm.

A single, white petal.

…

The third time it happens, Wally is starting to think that maybe these petals are not a coincidence.

He’s walking down the Watchtower hallway, towards the medbay, his aching arm pulled tight against his body. The battle against The Rogues had been tough, but Wally’d won, if only barely. His Rogues didn’t go easy, that’s for sure. Most of his minor injuries had healed, but the ice blast that had gotten his arm did some major damage. The tissue on his arm looks to be dead down to the subcutaneous layer. He’s barely able to move his arm without wincing.

Wally knows it’ll heal eventually. It would just be nice if he could get something to soothe the pain or ease the healing process.

He enters the medbay, and quickly finds an attending medic. He tells them what he needs, and they start cleaning and wrapping his arm. There are a few other heroes in the medbay as well, and Wally smiles at them too.

“How did he even get injured in the first place? All his villains are small fry, shouldn’t he he able to take care of them easily?” Says the other, an inquisitive look on his face. Wally sank down further into his chair.

A shrug. “There’s a reason most don’t group him in with the big-shots, especially if he can barely deal with a bank robbery. Hell, one injury and he’s in the medbay, even with his healing factor.” Wally feels mortified. Deep down, he knows that they’re wrong, that his villains aren’t small fry, you have to be good to go toe-to-toe with a man who can move faster than you can blink. There’s a reason he never tells the Justice League when a speedster villain is on the loose. But their words sting, deep in his chest.

Carefully, he extracts his arm from the grasp of the medic attending him. 

“I- I have to go. I can take care of this at home.” A lie. He doesn’t have any of the equipment or painkillers to do anything but wait until it heals itself. Standing quickly, Wally runs out the door, the tight feeling in his chest increasing with every step, until he feels himself double over, his body wracked with coughs. There’s something caught in his throat.

“Are you alright?” Says a voice from behind him. Wally stops coughing, and closes his fist on whatever had been caught in his throat. He turns to see J’onn, a concerned look on his face.

“Yeah,” Says Wally, grinning weakly. “Just had something caught in my throat.” Straightening up, Wally’s smile becomes more genuine. “Hey, J’onn, if you aren’t busy, do you wanna hang out? I’ve got nothing to do while my arm heals, and maybe you’ll learn a thing or two about Earth culture!” Wally gives him an enthusiastic thumbs up, and J’onn frowns.

“I am truly sorry, but I must do my duty. Coordinating the League is a full time task, Wally. Maybe later.” Wally’s face falls, and he feels his heart sink, the tightness in his chest back with a vengeance.

“Oh.” Says Wally, dejectedly. “I guess I’ll see you around then. Better head home and wait for this to heal.” He gestures to his bad arm, then zips away.

Once J’onn is out of sight, he uncurls his fist. More petals. More than before.

He coughs again, spitting out a few more white petals. This wasn’t a coincidence. This couldn’t  _ be  _ a coincidence. 

Maybe Ivy’d done something to him during the battle with the League? He’d have to ask Batman. 

Not now though. His arm is killing him, and Wally’s got a Star Trek marathon and some Ibuprofen waiting for him back at his apartment.

His lonely, empty apartment.

...

It takes Wally a while to get the Bat alone, and in that time, the incidents had gotten worse, the clusters of petals increasing in size, until he’d even coughed up a full flower. The tightness in his chest is near constant now, and Wally is afraid.

He steps into the monitor room quietly, trepidation lacing every movement. Though Batman doesn’t look up at his entrance, Wally knows that Bruce is aware of his presence.

“Hey Bruce, I need to talk to you.” Says Wally. 

“Hrm.” Grumbles Bruce. Wally chooses to interpret that as a signal to go on.

“Do you remember the battle with Poison Ivy?” Wally pauses, then continues. “Of course you do. I think she did something to me during the battle.”

Batman turns his head towards him slightly. “That’s concerning. Why do you think that?” 

“Well, at first, I thought I was just getting petals stuck in my throat while running, but it’s been happening often enough and in large enough amounts that I thought it was high time I spoke to you.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks away awkwardly. 

Bruce glares at him, and Wally recoils. “Get to the point.”

“Iwaswonderingifyouwouldmaybelookintoitor-“

“Wally.” Bruce cut him off. “I have cases to work on. A lot. Why don’t you go to the medbay about this?”

“Oh. Okay. Sorry for bothering you, B.” All Wally is left with is a sense of rejection and an increased tightness in his chest.

And he still has no idea what the petals are.

...

When Diana agrees to hang out with him for a while in Central, maybe come over to his apartment and watch a movie, Wally is over the moon. (It isn’t a romantic thing, Di’s really not his type. Wally’s taste in partners is firmly masculine, and his taste in fellow Leaguers leans more toward the broody, if you catch his drift.) It’ll be nice to hang out with her.

...

She stands him up. It wasn’t on purpose, there was a supervillain attack that required her immediate attention. She apologized after the fact, of course.

That didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt, both figuratively and literally, thanks to the flowers he coughed up.

He should be used to to the feeling of rejection (and the flowers) by now.

...

Wally knows that he’s dying, that these flowers and this loneliness are killing him slowly. The coughing itself was near constant, and recently he’d begun yo cough up blood with the petals, the liquid staining the flowers an ominous red.

He’s got a few theories as to why, but without any real examination or equipment what would he say? How would he explain the growth in his lungs to a doctor?

And it’s not like he feels comfortable going to the Watchtower medbay. Or Batman.

Not anymore.

...

He’s running, feeling faster and freer than he had in a while, laughing as he dodges the rogue’s attacks.

The wind rushes through his hair when-

He stumbles, wracked with pain. Leaning heavily against the wall, a hand on his stomach, he vomits. 

The flowers spill out of his mouth with a ferocity. Wally heaves up leaves and petals, even full blooms. Slowly, the stream of flowers slows to ragged coughs. Dully, Wally notices the presence of a hand on his back, and something trickling out of the corner of his mouth. He wipes his hand across his face.

“Are you okay?” Someone says, but Wally doesn’t respond. He’s staring down at the smear of dark red blood staining his glove.

_ Shit. _

The edges of his vision are blurring, the lack of air from the petals leaving his head spinning. Wally falls to the ground with a thud, blood trickling out of the side of his mouth, surrounded by flowers, each and every petal dotted with blood.

...

The first thing he hears when he wakes up is a fast, rhythmic beeping. His breathing was easier than it had been in a long time. Though that might just have been the speedster-strength painkillers.

He cracked open an eye, then shut it abruptly as the door to his room slid open.

“-But how could he let it get this bad? Why didn’t he come to us?” Says a voice distinctly Diana’s.

“He did,” said Bruce, his voice quiet. “I told him to go to the sickbay. I should have looked into it myself.”

As he felt himself begin to drift once more, Wally caught one last snippet of conversation.

“We should have paid more attention.”

**Author's Note:**

> wally’s dealin with BIG rsd
> 
> follow me @cryptid-batman on tumblr!!


End file.
